


All God's Creatures

by Fluffyllama (Llama)



Category: Bisclavret - Marie de France
Genre: M/M, Werewolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/Fluffyllama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bisclavret learns that he is not the only one with secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All God's Creatures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sister Coyote (sister_coyote)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/gifts).



After more than a year of absence, Bisclavret's house and lands might have been those of a stranger. He wandered his domain in the first flush of spring, and let his fingers rest on a shelf here, a window ledge there. He stroked a horse's neck, patted a cow's side, rubbed a dog's belly in search of familiar scents. He ran his hands along the fences and walls that contained them all and looked beyond them to the forest, but he would not allow himself to think about that. He was a man, and being otherwise had been part of his downfall.

He was a man, and he would live as one for as long as he could.

"Welcome home!" the neighbouring lords chorused. His oldest friends Rongeur and Renard sent gifts of food and wine, but neither had the leisure to join him at his table, nor to make the journey in person.

"Welcome home!" Mme. Lièvre would say when he met her in the village lane, or M. Lapin on a morning stroll through the fields. But they did not stroll with him, or engage in further conversation, and they hurried their children away from him.

Just a month after his return, Bisclavret sat at his table and realised he had not spoken to another human being outside his service for over a week. It had been five days since he had even left the confines of his house.

"Welcome home," he whispered to himself as the day turned slowly towards dusk. His willpower dissolved in one glass of wine too many, and his fingers plucked at his clothing.

* * *

The forest still smelled the same.

More importantly, the rabbits and hares that scattered before the beat of his paws didn't care that he had been a man just an hour before, or that he left his humanity in a hollow tree marked with his scent. Nothing in the bustling undergrowth below or the growing canopy of green above troubled him more or less than nature had always dictated, but simply went about its business. Leaves unfurled, birds nested, flowers blossomed; the whole almost as busy as the King's court, and Bisclavret as close to a King as he might ever be.

Three days he roamed, but not by necessity or design. The first day he visited favourite old haunts, and curled up to rest on a bed of moss close enough to the river to hear the splash of voles. When he awoke he could almost believe he still rested on the soft blankets of the King's bed, if not for the symphony of birdsong instead of hurried footsteps and the clanging of bells. The second day he followed deer trails, and sniffed after foxes long since bounded away on the outskirts of the forest. Once he even fancied he could scent the King, and maybe his favourite mount.

The third day he circled the clearing where the royal hounds had first flushed him out, and ran through the trees with the memory of the chase as fresh as yesterday in his mind. He ached from the exertion when he reached the spot where they held him at bay, and where the King had spared him.

The echo of a horn in the distance could have been any neighbouring landowner out for a ride, but the hoofprints under his claws and the straight-backed rider on a large chestnut mount told Bisclavret otherwise.

"My friend," said the King, dismounting while his companions smiled indulgently. He knelt to embrace Bisclavret, who was too winded from his long run to do more than accept it and rest his head on his King's shoulder. "What a happy coincidence to see you here."

It was pleasant to have someone to share a few hours of adventure with again, and even more so to have sights to show of his own, so many places and people had the King shared with Bisclavret at his castle and court. The Lords Blaireau and Hibou and the remainder of the King's entourage that Bisclavret was not so familiar with kept themselves amused at a distance, though Bisclavret ensured they were only ever a raised voice away. The King seemed content to follow Bisclavret wherever he led, exclaiming loudly over the aged oaks too far off the track to be familiar to the most dedicated of human explorers in the woods, and marvelling at the secret grottos and caves that Bisclavret knew of old.

At last they stood before the hollow tree, and Bisclavret was so eager to express himself in words once more that it never occurred to him to show caution. The King had chance to turn away, to not see the gradual shift from all fours to upright, from shaggy coat to naked and grubby, but when Bisclavret opened his eyes the King was transfixed, and there was affection rather than horror in his eyes.

"I'm sorry—" Bisclavret stammered, and reached for his clothes. "That was inexcusable of me, and—"

"Nonsense," said the King, somewhat brusquely. The fresh spring air seemed to have put a flush in his cheeks now that Bisclavret could see him with human eyes. "But you should take more care with your secrets."

"I have nothing to hide from you, my liege," Bisclavret said sincerely, still clutching his shirt and breeches in front of him. He thought he saw just the tiniest trace of a smile before the King turned away to let him dress.

They made quite a procession through the village, enough for faces to appear at every window and doorway, and for the bolder individuals to find a pressing need to take the afternoon air just as the jangle of riders and horses approached.

Bisclavret was barefoot and dirty behind the King, a sight he was sure would cement his outcast status in the village once and for all, but no sooner had they dismounted at his gate than the stream of callers began.

"You seem to be settling back in well," the King said when the faces at the window were gone and the last echoes of footsteps died away, and Bisclavret was too proud to tell him otherwise. He would sound foolish if he admitted that the forest or the King's company were worth more than his lands and vassals to him, and the King would not, he expected, look favourably upon the village for despising the wolf that he himself had so readily embraced and loved.

"It's just like old times, really," he said, and the King seemed satisfied with that.

"It wasn't a lie," Bisclavret told the owls and badgers when he next visited the forest, just a few short days later. "Three days a week in the forest _is_ just like old times."

The owls didn't seem inclined to argue, and the badgers were lost in the undergrowth before Bisclavret had the nose to scent them.

* * *

Three days a week became four when heralds passed through the area with news of the summer campaign. Bisclavret craved good news as much as he despised the inevitable feasts and dances that must be endured as a result.

"The King led his men to another victory," Lord Belette said, with a sly smile that might have been taken for surprise. "Just goes to show, eh?"

"I heard he may come back with a wife," the hostess added. "A captured princess perhaps. How romantic."

Belette snorted into his wine so hard he required two napkins to mop himself up. "He has better odds of finding a prince down there," he smirked when he recovered himself. "Not that it would trouble our liege to do so."

"Hush now," admonished his lady. "Don't bring court gossip here, these good folks don't want to hear it."

Human nature being what it was, of course, all heads leaned towards them both.

All heads but one.

"Bisclavret!" They all exclaimed, when the Lord's story was told, reluctantly of course. "Bisclavret will know the truth of it, for he knows the King better than any of us."

But when they remembered his presence and cared to look, Bisclavret's chair was empty.

* * *

As autumn approached, it seemed to Bisclavret that something had changed. The forest was still the same, the turning of the season aside, so the problem could only be in himself.

Once his forays into the woods had been enough to clear his mind, let him focus on the everyday tasks a man of his position must attend to, let him find it in himself to treasure his wife as a man should. Now, although he had vassals attend to more matters than ever before, and though he was spending four, sometimes five days roaming the breadth and depth of the forest as free as any creature could be, matters weighed so heavily on his mind that even the wolf was not spared their burden.

The murmur of the river became the whisper of village voices, and the beady eyes of sparrows the curious glances of his neighbours. The rustle of branches became the clang of battle, as if heard from afar, and the cries of hawks shouts of victory or defeat to suit his temper.

The physician Corbeau, though an honest and learned man, could not help him. "I know nothing of your condition or how to cure it," he cried, perched behind his desk. "Nor do I wish to know of it, for it is an unnatural affliction, and none of my concern."

The priest Muscardin, though a devout and earnest man, could not help him. "Truly, I am not certain you are one of God's creatures at all," he said with heartfelt sadness, and scurried back inside his church.

The rabbits and the weasels could not help him either, even if he left them be, and he had little appetite for prey. Not even a week in their domain was long enough to drive the demons from his head, nor the scratches and bruises on his feet enough to keep him from tracing and re-tracing the well-worn route that had become his habit, or to stop his urge to keep running, keep tracking, until he found the scent he was looking for once more.

His house was almost welcoming when he limped his way home at last. It was twilight, the wind picking up and the path littered with the first fallen leaves, and there should not have been a lamp lit in his rooms, yet somehow there was. There should not have been a chestnut mare snickering a greeting from the stables either, or a familiar figure resting in Bisclavret's bed.

It should not have been so easy to strip once more and leap up onto the bed, or to curl up at the foot of the bed, his snout resting on the evenly shifting shape under the blankets. It should not have been the best night's sleep Bisclavret had achieved in weeks. Yet somehow, it was.

* * *

With the King returned, and plenty of sport to be had in the woods, it became a regular occurrence for them to spend time together. No matter how fresh the scents picked up by the hounds or how plump the pheasants, as soon as Bisclavret appeared the King would wave his companions on and ride with the wolf at his mount's heels.

Some days they would trot behind the commotion of the hunt, and others they would seek the still-green depths of the forest where Summer still clung to the branches for a little longer. Sometimes the King would speak aloud of troubles to the north, or scandal in the court, and Bisclavret would listen along with the woodpeckers and the snakes, the rats and the voles. When they grew tired they would return to the hollow tree and talk until the chill set in their bones, or until the huntsmen came back their way.

Sometimes, the times Bisclavret enjoyed the most, they would pick their way through the ancient trees in comfortable silence, interrupted only by the rustle of squirrels in the treetops or the wind whispering in the branches. Those were the days that unwound through the forest like slowly departing mist, leaving them alone by moonrise with no sign of the hunting party. The King would then retrieve Bisclavret's clothing from the hollow tree and place it carefully across his saddle. Bisclavret would pad his way home beside the chestnut mare and wait for the King to lay his head on the pillow of Bisclavret's simple wooden bed, then curl up and sleep the day's adventures away.

There were whispers among his neighbours every time the King took his leave on a bright, cold morning, but they never spoke of that. Bisclavret simply went about his business with his head held high, taking no more notice than the wolf would of the nonsense chatter of jackdaws or the scuttling of beetles beneath his claws.

* * *

By the time autumn was fading to bare branches and stormy skies, Bisclavret only ventured to the forest when he knew the King would be there. Once a week turned to twice by silent agreement as the season wore on, because soon the roads would be more difficult to travel and the forest was already a less than hospitable place for human visitors.

"You should have a servant light a fire for your return," the King said, piling extra wood on one night and rubbing the cold ache from his hands. Bisclavret shook himself gently, his fur dripping a little on the rug, and shivered even as the flames rose higher.

The King patted him down with a blanket, but even that and the fire were not enough to combat the thick, wet pelt.

"It would be easier—" the King said, kneeling to hold the blanket over the wolf's shoulders, "if you. If you were to change." His face was warm with the fire's glow when Bisclavret touched his snout to it; warmer still when Bisclavret found himself chin to chin with it, nose to nose.

Mouth to mouth.

It was nothing like the joyful kisses Bisclavret remembered when he had been first restored, though just as plentiful, as generous as those. Nor was it anything like the kisses he had shared with his wife, though just as passionate, as loving as they had once been.

"I miss you at my side," the King whispered to him, fingers twined deep in Bisclavret's hair. "I turn to talk to you every day, and you are not there."

"I only go to the forest when you will be there," Bisclavret confessed in turn. His hands found their way inside the King's shirt, and he sighed. "I take no pleasure in it if you are not."

The rug was wet under Bisclavret's back when the King lay him down on the floor, and the fire a little too close for comfortable warmth, but Bisclavret would have happily drowned or burned without a murmur.

"I've wanted," the King told him, his hair tumbling onto Bisclavret's chest among the kisses as he worked his way down. "Wanted, for so long." His mouth, when it reached its destination, was hotter than the coals, wetter than the leaves discarded on the floor, but his hands held Bisclavret safe and sure until he arched and cried out his release, and until the King followed suit a few short moments later.

"You see, we all have secrets," the King said when they lay at last, breathless. "Ones that could cost us everything we hold dear."

A kingdom would be quite a prize to lose, Bisclavret thought. Or perhaps he meant a wife. The local lords were still placing wagers on a royal wedding, as far as he knew.

"I mean you," the King said softly, and he pulled Bisclavret to him once more.

* * *

So it was that on the first day of winter proper, Bisclavret packed up the few possessions he cared to keep and saddled up his horse.

He gave instructions for game and cheeses, beers and wines, to be sent to his old friends Rongeur and Renard. "We could visit," the King said, but Bisclavret shook his head.

He passed Mme. Lièvre and M. Lapin and their respective broods of offspring in the lane. "I'm going home," he told them, but he did not stop to answer their questions. The children ran after his horse but it soon left them in the dust.

He paid a visit to the physician Corbeau, who still twittered behind his desk. "I'm not looking for a cure," he told him. "There is no affliction, no disease. This is simply how I am, and there is nothing wrong with that."

He called at the church to speak to the priest Muscardin, who poked his nose out of the doorway to tut at Bisclavret. Bisclavret ignored his discomfort. "I know now that I _am_ one of God's creatures," he said, and smiled. "Or possibly even two." Muscardin twitched until he was out of sight.

At the King's urging, they reined in their horses as they passed Lord Belette's windows, and leaned in across the gap. The King's lips were warm even out there in the bright, cold morning.

"No princess will marry you now," Bisclavret said, but the King just shrugged.

"Our liege has nephews by the score," Blaireau told him, apparently unconcerned.

Beside him, Hibou nodded. "At least now we have a use for one of them."

"You see?" The King said, smiling as Bisclavret looked back at the village one last time. "Everything will work out just fine."

Bisclavret was not so sure. Now that he was at least half a man instead of wholly a wolf, and an even closer companion to the King, he doubted he would be welcomed as before. But it seemed everyone remembered him, however brief his human stay, and his first day back he could scarcely move through the halls and courtyards without someone hailing him to wish him well or to shake his hand.

"Now you know how I feel," the King said, pulling back the bedclothes that evening. "Why do you think I like the forest so much?"

"I thought that was because of me," Bisclavret said. He looked at the empty space beside the King, and then at the foot of the bed, where soft blankets were piled up as they had been the winter before. The winter he spent as a wolf. "I'm not sure where I should sleep."

The King smiled and reached up to take his hand. "Wherever you want to, and however you want to," he said, linking their fingers together. "As long as it's with me."

Bisclavret thought of the forest, and of his old, empty bed. He was sure only one of them would be missed. "There will be moss again in the spring," he mused out loud, sliding under the blankets.

"There'd better be," said the King, and kissed him.


End file.
